Ncuti Gatwa<\/a> as the Doctor is superb, inhabiting the role and bringing an authentic sense of continuity while also bring fresh and new. There was an inkling of this being the case previously, but a holiday special and a brief appearance in the context of regeneration were not enough to really get a sense. If this is a sign of things to come, it is a positive one. I\u2019m a bit worried about the silliness of some scripts, but not at all about the casting.<\/p>\n The Doctor speaks surprisingly candidly about who he is and where he comes from, not merely bearing a melancholy burden he hesitates to share as in the past, but openly speaking about his people as victims of a genocide. His planet died but he says that for that very reason and in that very context he is \u201cso so glad to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There is a quick trip back to the age of the dinosaurs, and a comedic treatment of the old time travel paradox about possibly changing history by stepping on a butterfly. The Doctor asks who would ever manage to step on a butterfly, but Ruby does and suddenly takes on a different appearance and character as a result of evolutionary history being rewritten. The Doctor realized he needs to reactivate the TARDIS\u2019 \u201cButterfly Compensation\u201d setting. A reference to Star Trek leads the Doctor to say that he needs to visit there some day. Graphic novels have explored crossovers and so this statement rendered all of that non-canonical!<\/p>\n Talking about the broken chameleon circuit, the Doctor quips that\u00a0\u201cMost of the universe is knackered\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I loved that Ruby\u2019s reaction to this glimpse of the future was such an enthusiastically positive one: \u201cWe made it. The human race, we survived. We went to the stars.\u201d In an era in which there is a lot of climate-related pessimism, we need this optimism. It is a worldview, in some ways a religious faith, that humanity has a future, and that hope is essential to our survival. (See Octavia Butler\u2019s\u00a0Parable of the Sower\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Parable of the Talents<\/em> for arguably the best sci-fi exploration of this.)<\/p>\n Returning to the episode, the Doctor\u2019s comment on his own path is also cool. He notes that he has no job, no bills, but freedom. We then learn that they have happened on a baby farm\u2026run by babies. The reaction of the babies is \u201cMummy and daddy are here!\u201d It is hilarious and tragic all at once. Asking whether, by staying babies yet also learning to run the station they have \u201cgrown up wrong,\u201d the Doctor replies comfortingly, \u201cNobody grows up wrong. You are what you are and you\u2019re fantastic.\u201d The Doctor shares still more about his life as an orphan, a foundling. He says (I\u2019m not sure I caught the exact wording here, \u201cThere\u2019s no one else like me in the universe and that\u2019s true of everyone. That\u2019s not a problem, that\u2019s a superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We hear the voice of Nan-E who we think is a computer but eventually discover is a human named Jocelyn who stayed behind to keep things running on the space station as best she could. Although we understand that this is more than a full-time job, the fact that the babies have never had a hug indicates that Jocelyn has realized she could not provide all the babies with the kind of motherly attention they would need in person, and so has opted to hide behind the machine persona. As we live in an era of increased virtual interaction and AI, in which churches and educational institutions are wrestling with what can be done remotely and what needs in-person connection with other human beings, this easy-to-miss detail deserves attention.<\/p>\n The scriptwriters then seized an opportunity to address a contemporary issue by having a character explain what led to the situation of \u201cspace babies\u201d being born and growing in space on their own after the adults had been forced to leave the station. It is illegal to switch off the baby-making machine, even though the babies are going to be left uncared for. When Jocelyn says that the world that does such things is a \u201cvery strange planet\u201d Ruby responds by saying it is not that strange.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There is a still more serious element here as well that ought not to be missed. Eric explains that Ruby (who has been assumed by the babies to be \u201cmommy\u201d) said no such thing as Bogeyman<\/a>. Ruby realizes that her effort to comfort the child through falsehood has done more harm than good. This in many ways gets at the essence of Doctor Who. As the Christian author G. K. Chesterton famously said, \u201cFairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.\u201d We can substitute the bogeyman and it still works. False reassurances that there are no dangers set people up to experience things that are inevitable and difficult as worldview-breaking, and the way they respond is worse than how those who grew up learning about monsters and heroes do.<\/p>\n Doctor Who has long offered sci-fi fairy tales, and if there is a twist at the end it is that dragons may be people too just as people may be monsters, and so it is always better to reserve judgment as long as possible, and to seek to reconcile and redeem rather than destroy whenever confronting a threat.<\/p>\n (By the way \u2013 did anyone else notice that, with the shift to Disney, Doctor Who has also shifted away from the British pronunciation \u201cmummy\u201d?)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Eventually we learn that the parthenogenesis machine made the Bogeyman because the educational software on the space station determined that the children need monsters. Since machines are prone to be very literal, it made one. More than that, it literally made a bogeyman out of bogeys (what some might call boogers). The Doctor\u2019s delight at discovering this is priceless.\u00a0\u201cIsn\u2019t the universe mad?\u201d This childlike embrace of the new, delighting in how much you lived rather than how many times you almost died, is what makes the Doctor a genuinely positive hero. I think there\u2019s a lesson here for those who aspire to the childlike faith of which Jesus taught. Children may be inclined to trust but they are also naturally inquisitive. They always ask \u201cwhy?\u201d and delight in the discovery.<\/p>\n On thing that the Doctor realizes in this episode is that this bogeyman is the only one of its kind, just like the Doctor. He thus determines to save it rather than destroy it.\u00a0It is worth thinking about this line of reasoning in light of what had been said earlier in the episode about the oddity of making it illegal to stop the baby-making machine. I won\u2019t veer off into a discussion of the broader topic of when life begins (well before conception<\/a>), when personhood develops and is present (we never learn whether the bogeyman is a sentient being), and whether an entity created by a malfunctioning computer to scare children has an inherent right to exist. The point is that here too we find that this episode that is pure silliness on the surface has depths worth exploring. The episode is called \u201cSpace Babies\u201d and the Doctor realizes that the so-called bogeyman is one of them.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In a last bit of madness, the Doctor moves the station towards a planet that will accept the space babies as refugees by venting accumulated methane from nappies to generate thrust.<\/p>\nTo The Distant Past (Dinosaurs and a Butterfly)<\/h3>\n
To The Distant Future (and the Space Babies)<\/h3>\n
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When the Doctor says that there are \u201cno such thing as monsters, just creatures you haven\u2019t met yet,\u201d the episode will test whether that is true. But first we encounter a space station with a parthenogenesis machine. If you don\u2019t recognize the term, it comes from the Greek words not only for beginning (you recognized \u201cGenesis\u201d) but also \u201cvirgin.\u201d It is thus a \u201cvirginal conception machine.\u201d This is but one of several subtle or quick passing references to things that are the purview of religion.<\/p>\n(Space) Babies and Technology<\/h3>\n
Enter the Bogeyman<\/h3>\n
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If religious views on conception, abortion, and IVF are in the background in that, there is a brief explicit humorous appearance of religion when Eric goes to confront the \u201cbad doggy\u201d that they have been fearing and calling the bogeyman. When Jocelyn shouts, \u201cFor God\u2019s sake Eric, run!\u201d a computerized voice responds with, \u201cEric invoking the deity. Increasing acceleration.\u201d As a person who teaches and writes about theological matters, I don\u2019t want to merely chuckle at the joke. Even non-religious people may utter a phrase like this, and whether religious or not, a prayer in a crisis will not change the way your engine functions. One of the challenges of doing theology in a scientific era is figuring out what if anything religion can and should mean in the context of this greater degree of understanding and control of the natural world.<\/p>\nChildlike Faith in a Mad Universe<\/h3>\n
Wrapping Up<\/h3>\n